William Mattieu Williams

“ My own experiments on myself, and the multitude of other experiments that I am daily witnessing among men of all occupations who have cast aside flesh-food after many years of mixed diet, prove incontestably that flesh-food is quite unnecessary; and also that men and women who emulate the aforesaid sheep to the mild extent of consuming daily about two ounces of animal tissue combined with six ounces of water, and dilute this with such weak vegetable food as the potato, are not measurably altered thereby so far as physical health is concerned. ”

“ I now conclude this series, with the expression of my firm conviction that the application of chemical science to cookery is capable of vastly extending and improving our food-supplies, and thereby of greatly increasing the numbers of prosperous human beings capable of living on the earth. ”

“ The idea of malt-feeding was theoretically sound. By the malting of barley or other grain its diastase is made to act upon its insoluble starch, and to convert it more or less completely into soluble dextrine, a change which is absolutely necessary as a part of the business of digestion. Therefore, if you feed cattle on malted grain instead of raw grain, you supply them with a food so prepared that a part of the business of digestion is already done for them, and their nutrition is thereby advanced. ”

“ Two or three short tunnels, or deep cuttings, across the Downs, are the only costly work to be done. By commencing at the sea end, all the material of the cuttings could be loaded on barges at once, carried out to sea, and then discharged; or shipped to ports where limestone is in demand. If I am not mistaken, one-half the capital required for the Channel Tunnel would suffice.
Besides communicating with Paris, such a canal would supply London with sea-water for baths and other purposes, thus covering all the conduit schemes that have from time to time been projected for this purpose. ”

“ We all have a natural tendency to exalt our own special branch of study, and this is perhaps desirable. It appears to me that mathematicians are prone to go further than others in this direction; their usual assumption being that whatever has been demonstrated mathematically must be infallibly true. ”

“ Allowance must always be made for the reflected colour of the sky shown in certain positions.
Other lakes are as nearly colourless as an imperfectly transparent liquid can be, and contrast remarkably with the intensely blue lakes above named.
All such colourless water that I have seen has either been supplied by the surface drainage of siliceous rocks, subject to little or no torrent grinding, or by springs passing through hard limestones. These contain limestone in solution, but no suspended coloured particles. ”

“ Assuming that a sufficient number of unfortunates can be found to supply the enormous capital required for digging the tunnel, I think I could improve upon the carbonic acid suffocation by a much simpler and more effectual application of chemical science. A few gallons of bromine in a glass carboy, connected with a device for breaking the bottle, would do it at once. No army could survive the resulting vapour which would be immediately given off, and would presently fill the tunnel with horrible fumes. ”

“ We all practically admit every day, in eating our ordinary English dinner, that this excess of nitrogenous matter and fat is bad; we do so by mixing the meat with that particular vegetable which contains an excess of the carbo-hydrates (starch) with the smallest available quantity of albuminoids and fat. The slice of meat, diluted with the lump of potato, brings the whole down to about the average composition of a fairly-arranged vegetarian repast. When I speak of a vegetarian repast, I do not mean mere cabbages and potatoes, but properly selected, well-cooked, nutritious vegetable food. ”

“ Then, again, if we compare Venus and the earth, two planets differing in dimension by a mere fraction, we find that, instead of Venus indicating the results of a nearly threefold greater moon-generating action of the sun, it has not three moons, but no moon.
Man presents another contradiction to those subsequent proceedings of the satellites which the theory expounds. The solidity of Mars is that of a middle-aged planet, according to the theoretical description of planet-growth; but the position of its satellites so near to their primary is quite juvenile. ”

“ From a strictly economical point of view it is desirable to dig in the fresh weeds, seeing that their decomposition in a manure heap must be attended with some loss of carbon, of ammonia, and of heat, all of which are so useful in the soil itself. ”

“ The question is not whether we are herbivorous or carnivorous animals. It is perfectly certain that we are neither. The carnivora feed on flesh alone, and eat that flesh raw. Nobody proposes that we should do this. The herbivora eat raw grass. Nobody suggests that we should follow their example.
It is perfectly clear that man can not be classed either with the carnivorous animals nor the herbivorous animals, nor with the graminivorous animals. ”

“ All these black lakes that I have seen in Norway, Scotland, Ireland, &c., are fed by rivers that flow through peat bogs, and dissolve from the peat a sufficient amount of bituminous matter to give the water when examined in small specimens the appearance of weak tea. The chief feeder of the Jolster Vand is as dark as very strong tea. ”

“ I walked down frequently to the field and examined the troublesome things, finding them always the same—viz., nearly true circles, and composed of coarser grass than that surrounding them, and at times with a crop of small fungi dotted over them. ”

“ As the tide-raising power varies "not as the inverse square, but as the inverse cube" (see page 680) , it is evident that the planets near to the sun must during their youth have suffered vastly greater tidal disturbance, or moon-generating agency, than the more distant, and therefore should have by far the largest families of satellites. Applying this test to the theory, it breaks down completely; for, instead of the satellites increasing in numbers with the proximity of the planets to the sun, the opposite is the case.
The two nearest planets, Mercury and Venus, have no satellites ”

“ It therefore contains vast stores of felspathic detritus that is very slowly giving up its potash in soluble form. Hence its fitness for the vine. But even this may be overtasked.
The above-stated principles apply to domestic gardening. If all the weeds and all the stalks of peas, beans, &c., waste leaves of cabbages, rhubarb, and similar refuse be returned, the ground only loses what is actually eaten. ”

“ Whether we do all the preparation in the kitchen by bringing the produce of the earth directly there, or whether, on account of our ignorance and incapacity as cooks, we pass our food through the stomach, intestines, blood-vessels, etc., of sheep and oxen, as a substitute for the first stages of scientific cookery, the result is about the same as regards the dietetic result. ”

“ Thin films are semi-transparent and have the colour of strong tea, which grows darker with increased thickness and opacity. All this is due to invisibly minute particles of black carbon suspended in a resinous medium. ”

“ Compared with the existing Canal de Midi, with its ninety-nine locks, either would be but a trifle. London is on the sea-level, and Paris is a small trifle above it. The barriers between the sea and either capital are inconsiderable. ”

“ The effect of dimensions of the planet must of course be considered as well as that of distance from the sun in estimating the tide-raising efficiency of solar attraction; but by comparing Jupiter and Saturn we have both of the tide-raising agencies so combined as to operate greatly in favour of Jupiter, and yet we find that his satellites are so much fewer. ”

“ We can easily supply our natural deficiencies in the matter of grinding, and do so in our flour-mills; but at first thought the idea of finding an artificial substitute for saliva does not recommend itself. When, however, it is understood that the chief active principle of the saliva so closely resembles the diastase of grain that it has received the name of animal diastase, and is probably the same compound, the aspect of the problem changes. ”

“ It commands a fine view of the Alyn valley and country beyond. The most conspicuous of the pasture fields displayed below had no fairy rings during the first and second years of my residence in the Celyn; but on the third a large crop of them came into existence. ”

“ Proctor is doing for the English-speaking peoples, and Flammarion for the French, what has never been well and widely done before, viz., bringing the most sublime results of mathematical demonstration and mathematical speculation within the reach of all intelligent men and women. ”

“ The food which Nature provides for the human infant differs from that provided for the young carnivorous animal, just in the same way as flesh-food differs from the cultivated and cooked vegetables and fruit within easy reach of man. ”

“ The milk prepared for the young of the different animals in the laboratory or kitchen of Nature is surely adapted to their structure as regards natural food requirements. Without assuming that the human dietetic requirements are identical with either of the other mammals, we may learn something concerning our approximation to one class or another by comparing the composition of human milk with that of the animals in question. ”

“ The production of malt-flour by grinding and sifting malted wheat, malted barley, or malted oats, or all of these, and the retailing of this at its fair value as a staple article of human food. Every shopkeeper who sells flour or meal of any kind should sell this. ”

“ Those who advocate the use of flesh-food usually do so on the ground that it it is more nutritious, contains more nitrogenous material and more fat than vegetable food. So much the worse for the human being, says Nature, when she prepares food. ”

“ I find that oatmeal-porridge, when thus treated with malt or malt extract, is thinned by the conversion of the bulk of its insoluble starch into soluble dextrine; that boiled rice is similarly thinned; that a stiff jelly of arrowroot is at once rendered watery, and its conversion into dextrine is demonstrated by its altered action on a solution of iodine. Instead of instantly striking a blue-black color on admixture, only a slight brownish tinge is displayed, and not even this when the temperature has been carefully maintained. ”

“ Not only is this the case with the secretion from the glands surrounding the mouth, but the pancreas, which is concerned in a later stage of digestion, is a gland so similar to the salivary glands that in ordinary cookery both are dressed and served as "sweetbreads," and its secretion, the pancreatic juice, is a liquid closely resembling saliva and containing a similar diastase, or substance that converts starch into dextrine, and from dextrine to sugar. ”

“ A small proportion of malt flour, one twentieth for example, has a considerable effect, and if a fancy price is to be paid for it such a proportion may be used; but, if it comes into sufficient demand to be subject to wholesome competition, larger proportions up to one fourth will be desirable. ”

“ In the limestone caverns of this and other European countries we find human bones gnawed by human teeth, and split open by flint implements for the evident purpose of extracting the marrow, according to the domestic economy of the period. ”

“ Swedes, turnips, mangel-wurzels, etc., will become delicate diet for invalids, horse-beans better than beef; delicate biscuits and fancy pastry, as well as ordinary bread, will be produced from sawdust and wood-shavings, plus a little leguminous flour. ”

“ There are certain albuminoids, certain carbo-hydrates, certain hydrocarbons, and certain salts demanded for our sustenance. Excepting in fruit, these are not supplied by Nature in a fit condition for our use. They must be prepared. ”

“ From what I am able to learn, the reason why this hopeful theory has not been carried out is simply that it does not "pay." The advantage to the cattle is not sufficient to remunerate the farmer for the extra cost of the malted food. ”

“ If all Englishmen were vegetarians, the whole aspect of the country would be changed. It would be a land of gardens and orchards, instead of gradually reverting to prairie grazing-ground as at present. The unemployed miserables of our great towns, the inhabitants of our union workhouses, and all our rogues and vagabonds, would find ample and suitable employment in agriculture. ”

“ His teeth are not constructed for munching and grinding raw grain, nor his digestive organs for assimilating such grain in this condition.
He is not even to be classed with the omnivorous animals. He stands apart from all as The Cooking Animal. ”